Small-scale Farm Dairies in Jämtland Ancient Practices in Modern Forms
Madeleine Bonow and Paulina Rytkönen
Introduction
The structural rationalisation and modernisation of the Swedish agro-food sector led to the gradual abandonment of traditional food. Industrial processing became a quality marker and artisan food was regarded with suspicion. In recent years there has been renewed interest in traditional food. The search for food with a history springs from the rise in consumer concerns about the impact of productivist agriculture on the environment, food safety, animal welfare and rural economies. This increased consciousness in terms of food production has created a new income opportunity for farmers, especially in marginal areas of Jämtland.1 The impact of globalising agro-food markets on farm economies forced farming to become an increasingly-multifunctional activity. Farming is now often combined with cultural and/or rural tourism, on-farm production, and farm stores. In addition, modern societies have imposed new demands on agriculture as farms are now supposed to generate a number of activities for the public good, such as the maintenance of beautiful landscapes, and engaging in environmental protection and biodiversity.2
Although this trend is expressed in different ways under the umbrella of the rise of local food, nevertheless, the return of traditional food, including forgotten production practices and products that were once abandoned in the name of modernity, has become quite prominent. A pioneering experience in this connection in Sweden is the re-articulation of artisan cheese production in Jämtland.3 Important
1 Hassink, J., Hulsink W., Grin, J., ‘Care Farms in the Netherlands: An Underexplored Example of Multifunctional Agriculture –Toward an Empirically Grounded, Organization-Theory-Based Typology, Rural Sociology 77, no. 4 (2012), 569-600.
2 Cudworth, E., Environmental Sociology, London 2003; Hassink, Hulsink, Grin, op. cit., 2012, 569-600.
3 The county of Jämtland is a mountainous, less-favoured area located in the northwest of Sweden. The county is very large and comprises 12% of the total national area, but only 1.4% of the population lives there, which makes it the most sparsely populated region in Europe. Jämtland has a very large number of
lessons are to be learned from this experience for the future enunciation of public policies concerning local traditional food, but our knowledge about the processes involved is still limited. The aim of this article is to present new knowledge about why the artisan cheese sector in Sweden was re-articulated. Emphasis is placed on the reasons why people became involved in this business and how different forms of capital were obtained and used in coping with the everyday carrying out of their businesses.4
Theoretical Considerations and Previous Research
In a previous article that highlighted the main entrepreneurial features of the process under study here, we showed that the farmers involved had contributed to a change of institutional setting, especially concerning food safety regulations. The article argued that entrepreneurial actions were performed by both the farmers and local authorities in this connection. Some of the main conclusions were that the development of the artisan-cheese sector involved new organisational forms – the use of old knowledge in a new market situation, the development of new products, the opening up of new markets and new learning processes and, not least, a dynamic interaction between economic actors over time. All of these are classical entrepreneurial features.5 But entrepreneurial theories are insufficient to explain why people became engaged in this trade and how they cope with everyday practices, nor can they explain the links between tradition, culture and the reproduction of the sector.
Some useful tools for our analysis are the concepts of capital and habitus, developed by Pierre Bourdieu. These concepts can help us to reach an understanding of the relationship between objective social structures and everyday practices.6
The use of the concept of capital proposes a sophisticated substitute to that offered within rational choice thinking.7 Capital can be social, cultural, economic or symbolic, or more usually a combination of one or more of these elements. For the farmers, the
small towns and villages scattered across the entire county. More than half of the county's population lives in villages and small communities of up to 1000 inhabitants. 15% of the population lives in small towns (1000-4000 inhabitants). 34% of the population lives in Östersund, the capital of Jämtland. The area located closest to the Norwegian border is characterised by a mountainous landscape in which the use of summer farms is a tradition that has been maintained over time.
4 The sample is composed of people who combine the activities of farming, husbandry and cheese-making.
Some of the people in the sample also run farm stores, farm inns, and so on. For the sake of simplicity all are referred to as farmers.
5 Rytkönen, P., Bonow, M., Johansson, M., Persson
,
Y, ‘Goat Cheese Production in Sweden – A Pioneering Experience in the Re-emergence of Local Food, Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section B - Plant Soil Science 63, Supplement 1 (2013): 38-46. See http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09064710.2013.798682.
6 Webb, J., Schirato, T., Danaher, G., Understanding Bourdieu, Crow’s Nest, N.S.W., Australia 2002, 1.
7 Savage M., Bagnall G., Longhurst B., Globalization and Belonging, London 2005.
economic capital involves money, assets, cash, debt, costs, prices, investments, loans, mortgages and goods. Their cultural capital is composed of skills, knowledge, know-how, values, norms, education, qualifications, cultural understanding, cultural artifacts, experiences, and an awareness of the culture of farming and cheese-making. Their social capital is made up of networks, meetings, friends, family, isolation, tensions, community, social connections, and professional acquaintances. Finally the symbolic capital is composed of identity, heritage (being born into a farm and the cheese-making craft), traditions, status, ownership, pride, emotions, and symbolic resources, such as the dairy herd, the land, and the farm.
The individual well-being of the farmers in our sample is considered to exist when they possess ‘human capital’ which they can use to negotiate and renegotiate their position in the wider fields of the dairy sector, thus giving them a more active sense of involvement beyond the production of cheese. Capital can be accumulated over time and has the potential to produce profits, and to reproduce itself in identical or expanded forms.8 Therefore, the artisan cheese sector can accumulate, use, and produce, all forms of capital. A person may use their social networks and their cultural capital – education, for example – to increase their financial and symbolic capital, as well as their status and well-being, while maintaining and reinforcing their identity. In this sense, starting a farm dairy becomes both an economic and a symbolic investment.9 Not only is the farm a source of livelihood involving economic transactions with a numbers of various actors across local and global dairy sectors, it is also an emotional investment linked to the well-being of the individual farmers.10
Farmers develop their human capital in relation to their habitus, that is, their socially embodied selves. Habitus designates a way of being, a habitual state and ‘in particular, a disposition, tendency, propensity or inclination’ to act11 in a manner that is not automatically conscious or spoken, but which has become embodied in actors through practice.12 It is subject to prejudice from national or regional cultures, educational systems and practices, from one generation to the next. Habitus describes
8 Bourdieu, P., ‘The Forms of Capital’, in Richardson, J., (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, New York 1986.
9 Heilbron, J., ‘Economic Sociology in France’, European Societies 31, no. 1 (2001): 57.
10 Bourdieu, P., Practical Reason, Stanford, C.A., 1998.
11 Bourdieu, P., Wacquant, L.J.D., An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, London 1992, 18.
12 Adams, M., ‘Hybridizing Habitus and Reflexivity: Towards an Understanding of Contemporary Identity’, Sociology. Journal of the British Sociological Association 40, no. 3 (2006): 514-16; Lau, R.W.K.,
‘Habitus and the Practical Logic of Practice’, Socology. Journal of the British Socological Association 38, no.
2 (2004): 374-6.
a ‘feel for the game’13 something that is taken for granted, like a ‘fish in water’,14 a sense of what the ‘right thing to do’, is.15 The notion of habitus is useful in order to understand how individual farmers construct a meaningful existence.16 The concept defines an individual’s feel for the state of play in a particular field, such as that of cheese-making.
A ‘field’ is an arena of production that is characterised by the competitive positions held by actors in their struggle to accumulate cultural capital.17 The concept of ‘field’
refers to the contexts in which people’s everyday practices occur, and to the interactions that take place within them. All farmers share certain fields such as their local communities, and local and regional bodies that structure the ways in which they work.
The farmers in our sample have a common field that is specific to their practice and within which they negotiate some important conditions for their sector. Habitus is indispensable for the negotiation that takes place within different fields, and it is also necessary in order to understand how agents play the game (of cheese-making and farm dairying) as it creates a sense of history and a sense of the future.18 Agents with a similar habitus can be expected to respond in similar ways. Cheese-making and farm dairying can be understood as a ‘field’, with a range of agents and characteristic forms of economic, social and cultural capital.
Methods and Sources
The study was undertaken in the County of Jämtland between 2010 and 2012. We interviewed twenty-four of the twenty-eight farm-dairy owners. Some farms are owned and managed by couples. Sometimes we interviewed the couple together, but some were also interviewed separately, hence the many names in the references. The respondents’ farms are quite small and range in size (comprising both arable and pasture land) from five to fifty hectares. The majority of farms raise goats, although some have cows or sheep. Some farms have mixed herds and some have, in addition to the home farm, a summer farm also, which is used for the pasturing of the animals between the months of June and August. Most of the farmers practice low-input agriculture. Some of the farms engage in organic farming, others use conventional farming methods, and a broad range of farming practices are in operation.
Information was collected in respondents’ homes, by means of qualitative in-depth interviews that ranged in length from forty-five minutes to five hours. The
13 Bourdieu, P., The Logic of Practice, Cambridge 1990.
14 Bourdieu, Wacquant., op. cit., 1992, 127.
15 Bourdieu, op. cit., 1998, 8.
16 Bourdieu, Wacquant., op. cit., 1992, 127.
17 Swartz, D., Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, London 1997, 117.
18 Webb, Schirato, Danaher, op. cit., 2006, 49.
interviews were conducted with the business owner and other family members active in the business. Interviews were chosen as the main research method to be used, because they can generate rich and detailed accounts of individual experiences, and offer flexibility which allows for adaptation to each context, organisation and individual. The interviews consisted of both structured and open-ended questions concerning the history of the respondents’ operations, farming conditions, individual strategies, entrepreneurship, administrative and financial issues, general and specific constraints, interactions within and outside the trade, sales and trademark strategies, relevant education and training, gender-related issues, future possibilities, and so on. We also interviewed informants from the County Board Administration (CBA) and Eldrimner (National Centre for Artisan Food Production) in order to emphasise structural aspects, policy implementation, and general sectoral development. Our analysis is based on Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and habitus. All informants agreed to have their names and statements published for scientific purposes.
The Articulation of the Artisan Cheese Sector in Jämtland
The modern form of the artisan cheese sector in Jämtland emerged in the late 1970s when special aid for goat farming was promoted by the local authorities as a way of preserving, re-appropriating and modernising, that farming sector. As many farms were, and are, small, and as the land is not suitable for large-scale intensive production, the public authorities have actively promoted a shift from cows to goats. A consequence of the involvement of the public authorities is that the sector also became institutionalised and monitored. In 1984, the County Board Administration, Länsstyrelsen (CBA), and Jämtland County Council (Jämtlands läns Landsting), started to offer financial support to goat farms under the leadership of Bodil Cornell, an official at the CBA, an organisation which is still involved in the development and in the provision of continuing public support for the sector. A crucial side-effect of the initiative was that closer interaction between the farmers was achieved, which has contributed to the existence of a partial safety net for active food artisans and has acted as an engine for the re-development of the sector. The subsidies provided by the CBA were also an incentive to start farm dairies.19
An additional milestone was an initiative launched by the goat-breeding association which, together with the CBA, made a grant of 50,000 crowns20 for the implementation of the project entitled ‘Swedish goat cheese’. The goal of the project was to work for the development of a new market-space for goat cheese. One of the means engaged in to achieve this was the development of a new modern standard
19 Interview with Cornell, Bodil, CEO at Eldrimner 2010.
20 The value corresponded to around 160,000 SEK in 2010 (c. Euro 17,700).
cheese that could be produced in sufficient quantities for the national market. In 1984, the formation of Jämtspira, a goat-cheese co-operative, provided the required platform for sustaining the development of a national market-space, as well as niche markets, for goat cheese. In addition, Jämtspira constituted an efficient support-tool for the expansion of the sector.21
The third vital component was the founding of a training centre for artisan cheese production in Ås.22 This educational dairy became an important hub, not only for knowledge dissemination, but also for the development of new products. Later on, the activities at the centre were extended to include other artisan food products also, and since 2006, it has become a national centre – called Eldrimner – for artisan food production. The centre conducts training in food-elaboration techniques and business administration for the food sector. It is also involved in lobbying for the improvement of conditions for those engaged in the small-scale production and distribution of food.
Eldrimner also promotes networking, co-operation, and the mobilisation of active and potential food artisans all over the country.23
Habitus and Individual Stories of Farmers
Almost all of the farmers in the sample had in common that they had moved to the countryside and that they had started the dairy as a conscious choice, thus changing their way of life and their occupation up to that point. Some were younger than others, only a few were born on their current farm, and most were not farmers originally.
Ann, one of the most successful farmers, makes seventy tons of cheese each year.
She started her farm dairy in the early 1980s, when she wanted to move back home after having lived in the city for several years. The main reason behind that decision was that she had always liked goats. She had been influenced by her neighbour, Elma, who had kept goats when Ann was a child. Elma always had a happy expression on her face. Ann used to sit and play with Elma´s kid goats as much as possible. She was always clear in her own mind that she wanted to marry a farmer, but since she did not actually do that, she bought a farm of her own instead. She expresses her love for the goats in the following way: ‘Of all the animals, it is only the goat and the dog that look into your eyes.’ If you have goats this means almost automatically that you have to make cheese. She says that ‘Making cheese is like a passion, a poison you become obsessed with; to create something, it’s magical’… ‘Cheese-making is part of an ancient tradition; it is a fantastic feeling to manufacture cheese. I also try to bring [a knowledge of] the craft to others’.24
21 See Rytkönen, Bonow, Johansson, Persson, op. cit., 2013.
22 Ås is a small village located 10 km outside the county capital Östersund.
23 Interview with Cornell, Bodil, 2010.
24 Interview with Klensmeden, Ann, 2010.
Gert and Gunilla moved to Raftsjöhöjden from Stockholm in the middle of the 1980s. They initially co-owned the farm with some of Gert’s relatives, but they became the sole owners in 2000. They wanted to grow biodynamic vegetables and to keep horses. They explain why they started the farm dairy as follows: ‘We are goat lovers both of us… Gunilla is genuinely interested in agriculture, but I was interested in farming on this particular farm that had belonged to my ancestors. We are interested in building communities for the future. That is why we are here… I love animals, but I do not think that conventional agriculture is community building – it is the contrary.’25 Gert explains that there are many people who believe that the countryside should be like a wine club, a place for the conscious consumer. But slow food, like cheese-making, is basically a completely revolutionary movement that can build new structures between town and country. Gert and Gunilla produce only the amount of cheese that they consider necessary for their own use and to support themselves, and they sell it mainly in the farm store and at special fairs and events.26
Ulla and Jonny, an elderly couple, bought their farm, Smååkran, in the year 2000.
Johnny always dreamt of having a farm and of keeping cows. They have been engaged in many different types of economic activities throughout their lives – fishing, bus driving, and forest work, for example. They grew up in the countryside – Jonny lived outside Gothenburg and Ulla outside Karlstad. Jonny went to agricultural school and has worked in agriculture in the past. They decided to buy a place of their own after having lived in many different locations. The farm had a functioning dairy, which was important for them given their age. Jonny explains: ‘It takes too long and it is too difficult to build up a business and we are too old.’ They had no previous cheese-making experience, but they learned how to do it. They have also used the previous owner's recipes and notes in order to solve all the practical problems related to cheese-making. ‘It is a hard but a fun job, and the goats are tremendously cuddly and social’, says Ulla, ‘but we are still not making any profit’.27
Karin, a former teacher, lives on Herrö goat farm in Härjedalen. The farm belongs to her husband Tord, but the dairy belongs to her. She has lived there for twelve years.
Tord had previously kept dairy cows but changed to beef cattle raising when he divorced his first wife. He eventually gave that up and started to work at Scandinavian Airlines. They started buying goats and building the dairy in 2003. She states that: ‘To cope one must be an enthusiast, have an outgoing temperament, and have self-discipline’. Karin would never have started the dairy knowing what she knows today.
‘My salary was reduced dramatically. There is so much work! Taking care of the animals, milking, cheese-making, and then the marketing and sales and freight are completely hopeless’.
25 Interview with Andersson, Gert and Gunilla, 2010.
26 Interview with Andersson, Gert and Gunilla, 2010.
27 Interview with Bengtsson, Ulla and Jonny, 2010.